Introduced myself and the old west weapons I caretake several times this year on several boards and groups. Figured i would use this as a place to put the pictures and note about the 1858 Remington I found in Auburn CA this spring. Hanging in the back of a tiny shop, The bare grey metal caught my eye as well as the familiar shape. This pistol came with quite a story, so I asked what they wanted for it. "Probably sold for an ounce of gold when it came out here, how about an ounce for it now?" That's $1300 in California dollars.. I said I'd go $1000, he said "sold". I'm a terrible haggler.
Started cleaning and messing around, got on here and some other boards, asking questions and reading.
What I found was that half the alphabet in stamps and matching serial numbers on triggerguard, frame, barrel and cylinder meant I had a complete, as-delivered-to-the-War-Department, original Remington from late 1863. The 52,xxx number is recorded as having been delivered in January of 1864, I assume that assembly would have been in the weeks prior.
-The Story-
Gunshop owner took the gun in 10, maybe 12 years ago as part of a collection to disperse for heirs to an estate of a local man. During construction somewhere in the Auburn area, the pistol was found in an old outhouse pit in the 1950's. Somebody whipped up a quickee set of grips for it, and it was a paperweight on a desk in an office for 50 years. Somebody had tried to "free-up" the action, ruining the hand and twisting the cylinder pin in the frame. The mainspring was gone as well.
Dixie Gun Works supplied a mainspring, and my local shop cut the seized pin, reamed the cylinder slightly and fit an oversized new pin as well as modifying a new Uberti hand and resetting timing/lock-up. Nipples are still the originals, haven't freed any yet and don't really want to drill them out. We will monitor that as time goes by.
I ordered the excellent Eras Gone mold for the 220 gr conical bullet patterned after the Johnston and Dow bullet of 160 years ago. It is superb and I've cast about 400 bullets so far, each batch better than the last. possibly my technique is improving, but the mold takes some heat cycles to get a nice finish inside and sort of break-in, I think.